


A Convenient Marriage

by fictionalcandie



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon, Alternate Universe - No Voldemort, Domestic, M/M, Oblivious, So Married
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-08-30
Updated: 2010-08-30
Packaged: 2017-12-09 23:56:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,171
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/779438
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fictionalcandie/pseuds/fictionalcandie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>James wants to get married. He’ll like being married.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Convenient Marriage

“I think I’m gonna ask Lily to marry me,” James announced.

Sirius grinned, bright and unsurprised. “That’s awesome.”

“I know,” agreed James, nodding.

They were quiet for a moment. James watched Sirius twist his bottle ‘round in his hand over and over again, his most obvious figuring-things-out tell.

“You’ll need a ring,” said Sirius, finally.

“I know,” James said again. “I was thinking about trying that new place off Diagon Alley.”

“Hm.” Sirius paused, tilting his head thoughtfully. “Yeah, that’d be a good place to start. On Friday?”

“You’re still free, right?”

“Yep,” said Sirius.

“We’ll go around 4, then,” James concluded, getting up for another round of beers.

“Awesome,” Sirius beamed. “Seriously. Awesome.”

“I know.”

 

Lily looked— Well. The polite term for it was probably ‘surprised’, but James personally felt it bore a stronger resemblance to ‘totally and completely astounded’.

“Marry?” Lily said after a moment, like she didn’t believe she could possibly have heard him correctly. “Marry you? I mean… _Marry_ you?”

“Yes,” James averred. He raised his eyebrows. “Yes?”

“I… Yes? I suppose— I mean, yes, of course I want to marry you.”

The last part came out sounding like a question, but James decided to take what he could get. “Awesome,” he said, and grinned.

 

“So,” began James, adding apples to their basket, “she said yes.”

“Of course she did,” Sirius replied. He wandered around to the other side of the display and called, “You wanted pears for that pie thing you were going to try, right?”

“What? Oh. Yeah, something like—”

“— four,” agreed Sirius, and he reemerged with exactly that number in a bag, which he added to the cart. “We’re not having that awful —”

“— potato thing for dinner?” James grinned and shook his head. “No, I promised we wouldn’t, remember? I was thinking roast chicken.”

“I like chicken,” Sirius declared happily.

“I know,” answered James, grinning at him.

 

James waited a week and a half to tell his parents, just to make sure Lily didn’t change her mind — she _had_ seemed awfully surprised — and when he finally went, he took Sirius with him, because he ought to have _someone_ there, and besides, Sirius had offered to go.

James parents’ faces took on a look of cautious delight as soon as he started talking, but that had disappeared more or less completely by the time he was done.

They looked, if possible, even more shocked than Lily had.

“You’re getting married,” his mother said flatly.

“To _Lily_ ,” added his father blankly.

James shared a confused glance with Sirius. “Yeah,” he said, and regarded his parents suspiciously. “Is there something wrong with that?”

His parents shared their own look, but James had no idea how to interpret it, and after a glance at Sirius, James could tell his friend didn’t, either.

“No,” his father replied finally. “Not _wrong_.”

“You don’t sound very convincing,” Sirius pointed out, frowning slightly.

Mr Potter lifted a hand and pinched the bridge of his nose. Hard, it looked like.

“Really, James. We love Lily, you know we do. We couldn’t hope for a better daughter-in-law,” Mrs Potter insisted quickly, gaze flickering toward Sirius for an instant. She gave her son an earnest look. “Really.”

Sirius raised one eyebrow at James, and James raised both of his right back. “So, what’s the problem, then?”

James’s parents looked from their son to Sirius, then back.

“Nothing,” Mr Potter said.

“Congratulations, James,” Mrs Potter said.

 

“The nursery?” James parroted, confused. “What nursery?”

Lily blinked at him. “The _nursery_ , James.”

“But you’re not pregnant,” he argued, even more confused.

“No, but— The room next to ours. The _nursery_. You know.”

James pushed his glasses up his nose. He scratched the side of his head. “That’s not a nursery, Lily.”

“It _could_ be,” said Lily, nonplussed.

“Why?” James asked blankly.

“If we— Because when we—” Lily broke off suddenly. Her face was all pinched up oddly. “Why did you agree that we should buy _this_ house, out of all the ones we looked at?”

“Because I liked it,” replied James.

“And why did you like it?” asked Lily, impatiently.

“Because of the spare room on the first floor.”

“Next to the master bedroom,” Lily nodded, looking like she thought there was something that he was missing. “Why?”

James blinked. “Because it’ll be perfect for Sirius when he stays the night.”

Lily reached up to massage her temples. “James. How often do you think Sirius will be staying, if you’ve got a whole room you’ve set aside for him to use?”

“A lot,” James said, because it was the truth, but it still didn’t sound like the right answer.

Lily’s pinched look got tighter. “That’s what I thought.”

“What?” James shifted uncomfortably, glancing away. “I don’t— What’s your point, Lily?”

“ _James_. You’re marrying me, but you’re not planning a _married life_ with me. You’re planning a life with Sirius where you _happen to be married_ to me.”

“Lily, don’t be—”

“No.” Lily stood up, her hands on her hips, and glared at him. “You really are. You don’t want to marry me, you want to marry him, but you’re too stupid to see it.”

“That’s ridicu—”

“ _No_ ,” Lily repeated angrily. “No, James, just _no_. I’m not marrying you. _No-one_ should marry you, if they aren’t Sirius. Just… go propose to _him_ , or something.”

 

“Lily said she won’t marry me,” James declared, as he shut the door behind himself.

“What?” demanded Sirius, looking up from where he was folding their laundry on the coffee table, an outraged expression firmly in place on his face. “Why on earth not?”

James came to a stop across the table from Sirius, scratching the back of his neck. “She says I don’t want to marry her.”

Sirius crossed his arms and regarded James disbelievingly over the neat piles of their underwear and t-shirts. “Don’t want to get married? That’s ridiculous! _Obviously_ you want to get married.”

“Well, yeah, she said that, but apparently I don’t want to marry _her_ ,” replied James.

Sirius furrowed his brow. “Well, who does she think you want to marry?”

“You.”

Sirius gaped at him. “Why would you want to marry me?”

“I don’t know!”

Sirius frowned down at their laundry. “If we were married, we’d have to have sex,” he pointed out.

“… so?”

“What?” Sirius looked startled. “You wouldn’t mind having sex with me?”

James shrugged. “Well, it’s not like I don’t already know what you look like when you come, so no, I don’t think I’d mind.”

“Okay, but.” Sirius paused. He rubbed absently at his chest. “That’s not all there is to being married,” he pointed out.

James nodded and said, “No, we’d have to, like, do each other’s laundry, and cook for each other, and, I don’t know, finish each other’s senten….”

They stared at each other.

“… yeah, that’s not a good argument for why we shouldn’t get married,” Sirius concluded.

They stared at each other for a while more.

“Hey, James?” Sirius finally said, thoughtful.

“Yeah, Si?”

“Wanna get married?”

James beamed. “Sure, Si.”


End file.
